Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ashbourne Community School is with us in the Gallery. It is very welcome.

As we speak, hundreds of nurses are meeting in Killarney in the middle of a prolonged and ongoing crisis in our hospitals. The health service is on its knees and has been for many years now. There is overcrowding on our hospital corridors, waiting lists are out of control and staff are exhausted and demoralised. Healthcare staff are at their wits' end. They have been crying out for support, but so many feel abandoned and let down by the Government's failure to get to grips with the crisis in our healthcare system. Yesterday, 704 people were lying on trolleys as they waited for care. Today, 712 people lie on trolleys. This was a predictable surge following a bank holiday weekend. In fact, this has happened on each one of the five bank holidays we have had this year. It could have been predicted and planned for.

The factors that sustain the overcrowding crisis are clear. We still do not have enough beds in the system and there are not enough staff to service those beds. Experts have warned how dangerous this is in terms of patient safety. We can add to this the chronic lack of community recovery beds, hundreds of delayed discharges and a crisis in GP provision. This means patients do not get seen when and where they need to and end up in overcrowded hospitals. Poor planning, poor leadership and a lack of investment have crippled the healthcare system. It is patients who are left to pay the price. Hard-working staff are demoralised, are trying their best day in and day out and are leaving the system in significant numbers. In fact, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, has warned today that three out of four nurses it surveyed have considered quitting their job. That is an extraordinary and astonishing figure. What is the response of the Taoiseach to that? I suppose we might say it is no wonder given the pressure they are under because crisis has become the norm on the Government's watch. It is the new normal that patients and staff are subjected to every day. People at their most vulnerable are left on trolleys or languishing on waiting lists and often miss crucial care. This has not happened by accident, but because of Government failure to invest sufficiently in healthcare capacity and staffing over the past decade. The response of the Government has consistently been far too slow. It is often big on promises but very short on delivery.

Cuireann géarchéim an róphlódaithe sna hospidéil othair i mbaol. Tá altraí ag obair thar a bheith crua cheana féin i gcúinsí thar a bheith deacair. Theip ar an Rialtas acmhainní a chur ar fáil go tapa agus is é sin atá ag croílár na faidhbe. Persistent and growing hospital overcrowding can be solved, but only with a multiannual capacity expansion plan, for which Sinn Féin has called for some time. It could make a real difference to patients and workers.

There are considerable challenges but a big change could be made, with determination and the will to deliver real and meaningful difference. When will the Government support and resource hospitals to reach safe staffing levels in the short term? Will the Minister for Health publish a multiannual capacity plan, including bed targets and detailing how he proposes to deliver the staff needed to tackle overcrowding? I ask the Taoiseach again for his response to that INMO survey and the reported finding that three out of four nurses surveyed have considered quitting their roles. How much worse does it have to get before the Taoiseach's Government gets its act together and gets to grips with what is a very real crisis?

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